Wolf Kill: Green light now, red light later?

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the federal government likely violated the law when it lifted Endangered Species Act protection from recovering wolf populations in the Northern Rockies.

The judge permitted controversial wolf hunts to go ahead this fall in Idaho – which intends to kill 220 wolves – and in Montana, where the targeted kill is 75 animals. But he said conservationists are “likely to prevail” on the merits of the suit.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Joshua Winchell told the Associated Press that the ruling confirmed that gray wolves have recovered, at least in their numbers. But he admitted that the suit raised more basic legal issues.

“Obviously, we want to make sure we’re doing right by the law, too,” Winchell told AP, adding that the Fish and Wildlife Service will consult with the Department of Justice on future response.

Wolves were reintroduced during the Clinton Administration.

Then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt carried the first cage, 15 years ago, as several of the silver-haired animals were set loose in Yellowstone National Park.

Wolf-watching has become a popular tourist attraction in Yellowstone’s wildlife rich Lamar Valley. The much-studied Druid Pack have become among North America’s most-photographed wolves.

In Idaho, however, hunters have blamed wolves for alleged declines in the elk population, and Gov. “Butch” Otter has delivered rifle-rattling speeches. Conservationists have countered with pictures of dead and wounded wolves, taken in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.

Actually, Idaho scaled back its targeted wolf kill to the 220 figure, in hopes it would pass legal muster.

The Obama Administration’s decision to remove Endangered Species Act protection followed along lines set by the Bush Administration. The new administration made one change: It left out Wyoming.

“In the big picture, this is a win,” Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said after the Wednesday ruling. “We feel good about the judge’s analysis of the merits of our case.

“The Department of Interior has clearly missed an opportunity to get this right. We need a national wolf recovery plan, and this piecemeal effort just won’t get us there.”

Wolves have lately migrated south from British Columbia into the North Cascades of Washington.

A lone animal was pictured as it sauntered through a playground in B.C.’s Skagit Provincial Recreation Area, just north of the U.S. border. A den was spotted on flanks of Hozomeen Mountain in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area.

A pack has since made its home in remote upper reaches of the Methow Valley, not far from habitat of the state’s largest mule deer herd.

Two Winthrop men were arrested last winter for killing two of the wolves – which are protected here – and trying to sell the pelts.